


breakfast like a man condemned

by Duck_Life



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Food as a Metaphor for Love, M/M, Non-Consensual Kissing, Possession, Suicidal Thoughts, The Lonely Fear Entity (The Magnus Archives)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:26:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27116071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duck_Life/pseuds/Duck_Life
Summary: Every day, Jon carries a breakfast tray down into the tunnels.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 12
Kudos: 157





	breakfast like a man condemned

> **What nicer thing can you do for somebody than make them breakfast?**
> 
> Anthony Bourdain

* * *

In the end, they do save the world. And it only costs them one thing. 

* * *

Jon makes his way through the twisting tunnels, just like yesterday and the day before. Sometimes he imagines he's holding onto a string, like Theseus in the labyrinth, and it's leading him ever closer to the one he loves. Ever closer to the beast.

But the truth is he needs no string or map to guide him down to the Panopticon. He knows the way by now. 

"Good morning," Jonah Magnus greets him from his throne. From his prison. "Toast again?"

"And jam. And butter," Jon says, setting the tray on the stone floor. There's a cup of tea there too, brewed and steeped and mixed with just the right amount of sugar, the way Jon has learned to make it. 

He doesn't know if he's actually making it right. Can't ask, and these days he only knows things the old-fashioned way. So he doesn't know for sure, how much cream or how many sugars or even if he's bought the right brand, and it's a little thing but it eats at him.

"Thank you, Jon," Jonah says, cordial and horrible. "You _do_ take such good care of me."

"It's not— I don't care about you," Jon spits.

"Naturally, naturally," he says, spreading butter across a piece of toast. "Although, you know what they say… what's good for the body is good for the mind." He crunches down on the toast, making a show out of enjoying it. "Or soul… or however it is you like to think of me."

"A parasite."

"Parasite?" Jonah says, pretending to be offended. "Is that so? Like, what, a thousand wriggling worms eating their way through your flesh, making you their home and hive?" The words spark static, and in an instant Jon is _there_ again, clueless and terrified while Jane Prentiss' worms burrow through his skin. 

His knees buckle, and he braces himself against the wall to keep from falling down. He brings his hands to his face, feeling the scarred-over skin, reminding himself the worms are long gone. His fingers come away wet with tears. 

Jon wipes his face and straightens up. "Eat," he says. And then he says the same thing he always says to the poor bastard whose body Jonah Magnus now inhabits. He says, "I love you, Martin," and he leaves. 

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


"Breaks your heart, doesn't it?” Jonah says.

Jon is back the next day with breakfast, staring into mocking eyes that don’t fit right in the face they now inhabit. 

“You don't have to answer, I know it does." Jonah lifts a piece of toast to inspect it, as though Melanie might have snuck in a razor blade. "That you're too weak to end me. That, if your roles were reversed, _he_ would have already killed me.”

Jonah’s right, damn him. Jon doesn’t need to Know to know the truth— if he were in Martin’s place, Martin would have been able to kill him. A tearful “ _I love you_ ,” and _“I’m sorry_ ,” the flash of a knife, and Jon and Jonah would be dead. 

Martin would have understood what Jon wanted and killed him. And Jon can’t find the strength to do the same for Martin. 

“I suppose I made the right choice,” Jonah muses, “in the end. If I'd chosen you, I would be dead right now." He laughs, cold and echoing in the dark chamber. 

Jon says, “I love you, Martin.” 

* * *

  
  


"You, y-you could, could do it," Jon says, quiet and desperate and at the end of his rope. "I wouldn't stop you."

"Jon," Melanie says.

" _Please_ ," Jon gasps, tugging at his hair as he curls into himself. "People are… are healing. Things are going back to normal. He's the _last piece_ , and I just… I _can_ ' _t_."

"What makes you think I can?" she demands. "I can't _kill_ for you Jon."

"Someone has to," he says miserably. "Someone just has to make it… stop. Make it be over. I don't even… I don't even have a way of knowing whether he's suffering in there."

Melanie makes a soft, sad noise and finds Jon's hand. "You know the answer to that," she says. 

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


One morning, when Jon comes into the Panopticon with breakfast, Jonah looks up at him with a strange expression. 

"Jon," Jonah Magnus says. " _Oh_ , Jon, it's me! It's Martin, he's given me my voice back. I love you so much, darling."

"Stop it." Jon’s hands shake so much that he drops the tray. Tea spatters across the cold floor. 

Jonah tilts his head— _Martin’s_ head— to the side in feigned innocence. "Stop what? I just want to tell you that I love you, and I think you're so handsome and brave—"

"Shut up!" Jon roars, kicking the breakfast tray to the other side of the chamber. He whirls around and storms away, head pounding with rage and grief. He makes it a few short steps into the tunnels before he turns back, jaw tight, to look down at the man smiling cruelly on the floor and say, “I love you, Martin.” 

* * *

  
  
  


"You lost," Jon says, pleads. It’s been days and days and weeks and weeks, and nothing’s changed. Jon’s pilgrimages into the tunnels to see ~~Martin~~ ~~Jonah~~ _Martin_ grant him no closure, no peace, no comfort. He makes them all the same. "Why won't you just accept that?"

"Oh, believe me, I've accepted it," Jonah says. "Living down here in the dark with the knowledge that you ruined 200 years of planning… I _know_ that I've lost, Archivist. Would you really deny me my... consolation prize?" This last part he says gazing down at Martin's fingers possessively, and Jon snaps. Lunges forward, arm pressed across Jonah's chest and a hand on his shoulder. Forces him against the cold stone wall, snarling as he presses into the other man's space. 

"He's no one's _prize_ ," Jon says, dangerous and devastated at once. He's breathing hard and his eyes are wild. 

Their faces are centimeters apart. Jonah seizes the opportunity to press his lips to Jon's. 

Jon's whole body seizes up at the violation. Jonah's tongue forces his lips apart and he presses against Jon's mouth and for a second, just a _second_ , Jon's heart and mind splinter and his body believes it's really Martin kissing him. 

For a second, just a second, he responds. Responds as if Martin is here with him, responds as if he's a thousand miles away, somewhere safe with the man he loves. Jon kisses back, and when he realizes what he's doing he jumps back in anger and disgust, dragging the back of his hand across his mouth. 

He looks up in horror to see Jonah twisting Martin's kind mouth into a cruel smirk. Without another word, Jon stumbles back and escapes into the winding, writhing tunnels. 

* * *

  
  


The plan comes to Jon all at once, and he thinks it’s probably something the analytical part of his mind dreamed up while the rest of him was too consumed by loss and pain. It’s simple, maybe simple enough to work. And it will hurt.

Only until it doesn’t, though. 

* * *

  
  


Jonah notices his empty hands immediately. “No food?” 

“Like it matters to you,” Jon says, hand slipping into his jacket pocket to touch the chain tucked there. “It isn’t food that keeps you alive, Jonah. I’ve been coming down here every day with breakfast and dinner for hi— for _Martin_. The food is for him. But you’ve been feeding too, haven’t you?” 

“Very clever, Archivist.”

“With the Eye out of power, you can’t just… let your eyes wander. You’re trapped here, only able to soak up the terror that’s presented to you.” He laughs, hoarse and humorless. “And I’ve got plenty to spare.” 

“I see,” Jonah says. “Do you have a point?” 

“Getting there,” Jon says. From his pocket, he draws out the artifact he found nestled away in storage. Jonah’s sharp intake of breath is gratifying. "See, I think Melanie had the right idea before, just went around it the wrong way." Jon dangles the rusted sailor’s whistle in front of Jonah. "Poisoning you, I mean. Her mistake was putting poison in your coffee. But it isn't coffee that sustains you, is it?"

"Arch— _Jon_ ," Jonah says, voice pitched as though he's trying to talk Jon down from a ledge, "you don't have to do this." Sour satisfaction curls in Jon’s stomach— it’s the first time he can remember seeing Jonah actually look panicked. 

"Do you even know what I'm about to do?" Jon says. "Do you Know?"

"I can guess." Jonah pushed himself up from the floor. "I'm sure you're going to do something _stupid_ , and accomplish nothing but hurting yourself."

"You're cut off from the rest of the world," Jon points out. "All that terror, all that pain… You don't get to feed on it anymore. All you have is me."

"Jon."

"My… anguish. My fear. You're being sustained by the terror that I feel… watching you exist in the body of the man that I love." 

"Jon," Jonah says again, warning in the tone of his voice. "Don't be an idiot."

"So… so what if I poison your food supply?" Jon says, voice shaking as he draws the boatswain’s call up toward his mouth. "If I couldn't feel any of it anymore? The… the terror, the anguish? The l— the love?"

"You haven't thought this through," Jonah says, but he sounds different now. He sounds scared. "This isn't going to work out the way you want."

"Nothing ever does," Jon says. "Goodbye, Jonah," he says, with anger, with a bitter triumph. And then gentler, quieter, "Goodbye, Ma— " His voice breaks, he casts his eyes downward. "Goodbye. Goodbye."

Jon blows the whistle. 

* * *

  
  
  


Gray-white nothing engulfs him. Beneath his shoes, shells and gravel crunch as he takes a few tentative steps into the fog. It’s the same on all sides, cold and distant and empty. He can hear the swell and crash of waves, but he can’t see the water. Endless shore in every direction, without even the squawk of seagulls for company. 

This place-that-isn’t-a-place, it’s familiar to him. It’s the same as before. He wonders if everyone’s Lonely is like this, or if he brought himself here because it’s where he once came looking for…

But thoughts of other people slip away like sand. Fog swirls. He can feel the memory of sorrow and pain in his body, emotional aches without any context attached. And it’s so, so easy to let them go. 

Everything is whisper-soft here. He does not have to be angry, does not have to be sad, does not have to attach his heart to anyone else. 

A long time ago, Jonathan Sims opened up a book about a spider. Every story after that, every book and statement and memory, only brought more pain and torment. For so long, his story was one of loss and deceit, knowledge without understanding, purpose without control. 

And light, and love, in the in-between spaces. Quiet chapters. Appendices. Drowned out by quiet and fog, now, so maybe it didn’t matter anyway. 

A long time ago, Jonathan Sims opened up a book and started his story. It’s okay, he decides, for it to end here. Surrounded by nothing and no one, because everyone is alone at the end, aren’t they? So it’s okay. It has to be. 

Gravel and sand crunch beneath his shoes as he lets himself fade. 

* * *

The alone lasts forever, until it doesn’t. 

The man who comes toward him has eyes all white, milky-blind with no pupils or irises, like all the color was drained away. Jon doesn't know him, just sees the wavery outline, like watching a stranger through a sheet of rain. 

The man is calling his name. "Jon! Jon, I know you're there. Please."

"Please," Jon repeats, the word strange and heavy on his tongue. 

"I'm here." Hands, hands on his shoulders. Jon flinches, and the hands are gone. "I'm sorry, I— I remember this place. I remember what it's like. I won't rush you, I just… I'm here. I'm here for you."

Jon stumbles, realizes he wants to be held but he's scared to be hurt. His understanding of how to act around another person has drained away, and he’s left a little confused. The Lonely wraps cold fingers around him and he can't hear whatever the man with the white eyes is saying. 

There is rushing in his ears, cold mist and fog swirling around his head. He wants it to be comfortable, but it's just cold. It feels wrong. Maybe if the other man would stop talking—

"— know, I _know_ it feels like this is where you should be," the man is saying, and he's kneeling in front of Jon now. Why is Jon on the ground? How long has he been there? "But it isn't. You— you're not _alone_ , Jon. I'm here. I'm here and I love you." 

Jon stares down at his hands. "Why?"

The man exhales through his nose. "... I don't know," he says. "Just do. Can't seem to stop, no matter how many reckless, ridiculous things you do. Like throwing yourself into the Lonely to kill the monster wearing my skin." 

Jon shudders, and he can see his breath puff up in front of his face. "You can't see, can you?"

"Not much to look at here anyway," he says. "I imagine I'll feel a little differently once we get home, but… well."

"Home," Jon says, like it's a word whose meaning has vanished from his mind. 

"Yes, Jon. We're going home. I'm here to bring you back home."

"Oh." For some reason, Jon wants the man to touch him again. So he holds out his hand, reaches, grasps. The man slides his hand into Jon's and squeezes, and Jon is speaking before his mind can catch up with his mouth. " _Martin_."

"I'm here."

"Oh, God," Jon heaves, and he curls into Martin and Martin holds him and rocks him, hands chafing up and down Jon's back and arms like he can rub the warmth and color back into him before he fades away. 

"I know."

"You were gone," Jon says, shakes, weeps. "You were gone, you were _him_ , and I, I, I couldn't do anything, j-just watch you. Watch him using you, a-and I just wanted it to stop. Had to make it stop."

"I know," Martin says again, stroking through Jon's hair. 

"I was ready to st— to stay here," Jon says. "I'm sorry, Martin, I'm s— I'm sorry. I didn't know if you would even _survive_ or if… I just knew you wouldn't be _him_ anymore. And I was going to stay here. I was… I thought I was ready to stay here. Forever."

"You don't have to," Martin says. "It's okay. I'm here, and I'm going to bring you home."

"You can't see," Jon says, laughs without humor. 

"I don't have to," Martin says. "This used to be me. I know the way out." 

"Oh."

Martin squeezes his hand again. "Are you ready to come with me?" 

Jon drags in a deep breath, lets it out. "I think so," he says. "I… yeah. Could you help me… ?"

"Of course," Martin says, lifting Jon to his feet. "Come on," he says. "I've got you." 

* * *

  
  


After they emerge into the real world, or what passes for it these days, Martin manages a few minutes. He manages to walk with Jon up out of the tunnels to what was once the Archives. He manages to feel his way to the lightswitch. He manages to wrap his hands around the empty mug on Jon's old desk, as if he's about to go and make tea, and that's as far as he gets. 

The mug shatters when it falls. Martin shatters too, crashes to the floor like his legs won't hold him anymore, and now it's Jon's turn to kneel in front of him. 

Martin opens his mouth, but instead of words what comes out is a garbled, wounded cry. 

Jon touches him, tries to hold him together. "I'm here," he says, shaking off the salt-spray of the Lonely as he clings to Martin. "I'm here, Martin. Talk to me. Please."

"I couldn't stop him," Martin sobs. Now that Jon is out of the Lonely, safe and working toward sound, the reality of what Jonah Magnus did is hitting Martin all at once. "He took, he took over everything I was. And I could f-f-feel _all_ of it. I tried to go away, tried to j-just go somewhere else. He wouldn't _let_ me."

"He's gone. He's dead," Jon promises, trying to kick away the ceramic shards of the broken mug so Martin won't hurt himself. "You can… it's okay. I've got you."

"I could see you, hear you," Martin continues. "And I felt my mouth open and he made me say all those horrible things. Made me lie. I didn't _want_ to—" 

"Shh, I know," Jon whispers. "I know."

"I'm _so_ sorry."

"You don't have to be sorry for anything," Jon says firmly. “Martin, I… I’ve been. Controlled. By Jonah Magnus, and it was… it was one of the worst things I’ve experienced. But then I can’t even begin to imagine what it was like for you, for so _long_ , trapped like that… oh, Martin.” 

Martin presses his face against Jon’s neck, breathes in the safety and certainty there. “I wish you hadn’t risked yourself like that,” he murmurs, “but… but I’m glad it worked.” 

“Me too,” Jon says, clutching him close. Finally secure in the knowledge that he's holding Martin and only Martin, that no one else is listening in when he says, “I love you, Martin.” 

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


The apartment is theirs. A fresh start in a place where neither of them has been hounded by worms or kidnapped by mannequins. Sunlight streams through the window above their breakfast nook, and Jon tilts his head upward to let himself feel it. 

Martin sinks into the bench seat beside him with a platter of eggs and sausage, and he beams as he feels for Jon’s face, kisses him. “Shoot,” he says a moment later. “I forgot the tea.” 

And Jon says, “I’ll get it,” and Jon stands and Jon fetches two cups of tea from the kitchen and brings them to Martin so the two of them can enjoy breakfast together. 


End file.
